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“SEEK VISTA”

by Gary Cuba

“Sam, maybe we should head back
to the main highway.” Marian’s small voice hardly registered over the noise of
the SUV’s massive tires pounding over the rocky scree that covered the approach
to the butte rising in front of them.

“C’mon, Marian,” Sam said. “This
is what it’s all about. Life on the edge. You can’t hardly buy this kind of
experience.”

He’d punched the “seek vista”
control on the SUV’s onboard computer a few miles back, and the vehicle had launched
itself onto this new route, turning off the paved road and coursing through the
dry, rough badlands. Sam beamed in delight: the SUV was the newest model and
had all the luxury options, including the latest version of automated touring
software. His new man–toy had cost him dearly, and he was determined to get his
money’s worth out of it.

“What if we get stuck out here?” Marian said.

Sam chortled. “You can’t get ‘stuck’
anywhere on the planet anymore. If we do get in trouble, we only need to punch the
‘call for help’ button. That’ll bring help racing to the scene. So loosen up,
lady… Have some fun for a change!”

Marian sniffed once, retrieved
the compact from her purse, and proceeded to check the powder on her nose.

Sam watched the sparse cacti and
yuccas zip by outside the window, his arms clasped behind his head, secure in
the knowledge that the vehicle’s computer would take care of manipulating the
steering based on input from the laser scanners embedded in the front bumper.
Their angle of ascent had risen significantly in the last few minutes, and the
terrain was getting rougher.

“It’s a real beast, isn’t it?” he
said. “Moves like a panther over this terrain.”

“I have to go to the bathroom, Sam. It’s from all the bouncing.”

Sam looked over at his wife and frowned. “You’re no fun at all.”

“I have to go to the bathroom. Like I said.”

“Okay, okay. We’ll stop and you can find a rock to go behind.”

Sam stepped on the brake pedal.
It fell flaccidly to the floor. The vehicle continued on, unimpeded.

“Right,” Sam said. “No stopping
it that way, I guess.” He studied the computer screen in the center console,
looking for a means of halting the vehicle’s progress. There must be a menu
or an icon I’m just not seeing, he thought.

The vehicle continued to crawl up
the side of the butte. It had gotten frighteningly steep. Sam began to
second–guess his impulsive decision to take this little side trip. What if
we roll over and damage the emergency call antenna? Lord, what if we’re injured
and trapped inside this thing?

“I need to go, Sam.”

“Just cross your legs, Marian. I
can’t seem to get this program to escape.”

“Bad choice of words, Sam.”

“Marian, bear with me, here! This
is a complicated, state–of–the–art device. I’ll figure it out. Just give me a
minute!”

Without warning, the SUV lurched
to the left. Their angle of ascent changed, throwing them both sideways against
their seatbelts. Sam wondered why the airbags didn’t inflate, considering the
dramatic g–loads they suffered. The vehicle continued churning its way up the
side of the butte, apparently now deciding to assault it in a more of a spiraling
fashion. Sam heard Marian shriek once, then the smell of urine began to
permeate the cab.

“Marian, you didn’t! This is leather,
for God’s sake!”

“Two words, Sam. Two words for
you. By this time, you should know what they are.”

Marian reached up to the overhead
central console and jabbed the “call for help” button. A dial–tone sounded, followed
by the beeping of a connection being established. After a moment, a recorded
voice with the hint of a foreign accent came over the line.

“Thank you for calling the RT
Rolling Thunder automotive help line. Your call is important to us. Please hold
the line until the next service agent becomes available. This call may be
monitored for quality control purposes…”

Instrumental music took over at
that point. Sam recognized it as an old Burt Bacharach song, interpreted in a
particularly schmaltzy, irritating way.

The SUV continued to spiral up,
up, up the sides of the butte, its engine growling as it conquered the larger
boulders in its path. Sam pressed the door–mounted control to lower his
driver’s side window, trying to get some fresh air into the cab, but it didn’t
respond.

At gut–churning length, the
vehicle reached its destination. Sam gasped in sync with Marian’s own
exclamation as they crested the top of the butte. There in front of them, lined
up in a neat row as if they sat gleaming in the original dealer’s lot, were at
least a dozen other RT Rolling Thunder SUVs, all perched with their front
bumpers hanging precipitously over the rim of the plateau.

Their own SUV slowly maneuvered
itself to line up with the nearest one—a cherry red model, Sam noted—and
finally crunched to a stop, its front wheels an inch from the edge of the sheer
dropoff.

After a moment, when his heart
had managed to descend to its normal position, Sam glanced over at the
neighboring vehicle, barely two feet away from them. Its occupants were slumped
back in their seats, their faces gray and desiccated, swollen purple tongues
sticking out of gaping mouths, sightless milky eyes bulging wide.

He tried to open his door. It
might as well have been welded shut. And it was useless to think about breaking
the thick, tempered glass in the car; he remembered the original sales brochure
touting its bulletproof strength.

“It is quite a
breathtaking vista,” he said, looking out over the desert that stretched for a
hundred miles in front of them.

“Two words, Sam.”

Around them the air resonated
with the unrelenting sound of the same Burt Bacharach song, coming from many
sources.

Gary Cuba lives with his lovely wife
(yes, she is reading this over his shoulder) and a teeming horde of freeloading domestic critters in
South Carolina, USA. His home is located perilously close to a swamp where big–footed,
seven–foot–tall “Skunk Apes” are said to lurk. (And while he hasn't seen any of these marsh Yetis
personally, he has numerous friends who claim to have done so—although
it must be noted that those persons tend to like their beer a lot.) Besides numerous appearances
in Stupefying Stories, his quirky short fiction has been published in more than
sixty magazines and anthologies, including Crimson Fog, ReadShortFiction,
Conjurings, Universe Annex
(Grantville Gazette), Abyss & Apex, and Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine.
See http://www.thefoggiestnotion.com to find links to some of his other work and to learn more about him.